Monday, June 13, 2011

And only four died in the whiskey-induced, post-funeral brawl

During the Great Storm of 1781, John Jameson, your typical, average whisky-swilling Irishman, lost a barrel of his beloved hooch, which broke loose and fell into the raging sea.

Did I mention that John Jameson was Irish? 'Cause that's kind of important in understanding why he would proceed to commit suicide by diving into the storm-tossed ocean in an attempt to recover one of the roughly 10,000 barrels of fermented corn his ship was carrying.

I'm not even going to touch the "he said goodbye to his crew" line, which accompanies a scene in which John Jameson is giving an open-mouthed, passionate kiss to a decidedly feminine-looking crew mate. Bad writing? Bad editing? You make the call.

And now we've come to the LOL EPIC punchline. You see, all of Ireland- roughly one million potato-munching, famine-fleeing, pasty-skinned, red-haired, hot-tempered and above all Liquor-Obsessed cabbage junkies- turned out for John Jameson's funeral. As the legend goes, John Jameson himself appeared during the ceremony, crawling out of the sea with the wayward barrel of whiskey on one shoulder. Good times, we may assume, where had by all.

After all, these are Irish people. And now they have whiskey. What else could they possibly want- food? Land? That's what America is for!

I wonder how many posters who complained about my take on last year's racist (sorry, but that's what it was) State Farm ad will let me know that this commercial is in no way offensive to anyone with Irish ancestry (full disclosure: I'm one-fourth Irish myself, though I don't look it.) Maybe it's just poking fun at a beloved, cherished stereotype and I just need to let it go.

Or maybe it's time for advertisers to figure out that "Irish =Alcohol-Loving Idiots" is not really an appropriate way to sell us their product in the 21st century. After all, we haven't seen "Mama Mia thatsa Spicy Meatball!" in more than thirty years (and as someone who is also one-quarter Italian, I really appreciate that.)

By the way, why did this ad even bother with the octopus? Did they think that jumping into the ocean during a hurricane wasn't lethal-looking enough?